Weekly Rumor Roundup

The gaming industry is never in want of more rumors. Check back to Source Code every week and I'll pull together the big ones and whether or not there's any merit to them.

Here are the rumors for the week of May 20:

Mirror’s Edge 2

A listing for the sequel to 2008’s eye candy parkour appeared on theGermanyversion of Amazon. The game’s publisher, EA, quickly shot down hopes of the post being legitimate by saying “This is not official EA material. We have nothing to announce at this time.” Many fans have clamored for a follow up to Faith’s running ways and EA has been leading the masses along with the proverbial carrot here and there for about as long.

In the age of every retailer and their mother offering pre-order bonuses, leaked listings such have this have become more common and often times force the publisher to go ahead with an announcement. If there is any truth to the listing, look for an announcement next month during E3.

Star Wars Battlefront III

Following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasarts, the studio behind everything Star Wars, the division of the company responsible for developing Star Wars related video games was boarded up and EA was given an exclusive deal to develop new Star Wars games for consoles and PCs. During the Stifel 2013 Technology Conference EA CFO Blake Jorgensen dropped a hint that the company was very interested in publishing a new Battlefront title saying that the opportunity to do so was “very exciting.”

Battlefront III has often been rumored to be in development despite having already been officially cancelled in the past. Some months ago a set of screenshots even surfaced that were allegedly from the game. With somebody behind the money at EA actually supporting the cause, it is likely we could finally see a third installment in the franchise, or at the very least a spiritual successor.

Crackdown 3

During the Xbox One reveal Microsoft may have let slip that a third iteration of the super powered cop game Crackdown may be on the way. Attentive viewers of the reveal conference noted that an agility orb from the franchise made an appearance on a tile on the Xbox One’s home screen.

Nobody during the conference said anything directly related to the images on the tiles but Microsoft did say that 15 exclusive titles would launch on the Xbox One within it’s first year. Eight of those will be new franchises, leaving seven already established Xbox exclusive franchises. Halo is certainly going to be one of them and judging by how well Microsoft kept the name of the console a secret its safe to say nothing made it on that home screen by accident.

Xbox One related

The reveal of the Xbox One earlier this week answer a few questions regarding the next-gen console. But Microsoft decided to follow the cliché and pose just as many questions as they answered. Here’s a small roundup of what’s confirmed and what’s still out in the air:

Always Online

It has been confirmed that the Xbox One will require an internet to function but that the connection does not have to constant. The console will have to connect to the internet at least once a day authenticate user profiles and connect to the cloud for any software that requires it. Popular belief is that games will be tied to your Xbox Live account and the internet connection will be used to verify that you are the actual person playing it. That isn’t to say that somebody else in your house or apartment won’t be able to play your games, but it is likely that when you purchase a new game the console will need to communicate to the cloud that you have purchased the game and are authorized to use it. So if you have no internet connectivity whatsoever, better buy a PlayStation 4.

Used Games

Obviously the above mentioned authentication process will have a major impact on used and rented games. Rumors going around say that the Xbox One will be able to play used games, but that an additional licensing fee may be applied before you can access game content.

Rumors of Sony and Microsoft trying to essentially kill used games sales have been around a while and compared to some of the alternative ideas regarding how they could effectively make such a thing happen, this one seems pretty reasonable. Used game retailers can stay in business and developers and publishers can finally start to see a cut of secondhand game sales.

Unfortunately nothing has really been said about how rental services like Red Box and Gamefly will be affected. And here I just renewed my subscription, too…

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